| Notes |
- The generally excellent Abandoning America (citation details below) gives her as a daughter of Dr. Edmund Sheafe. But John Brooks Threlfall (citation details below) presents convincing proof that her father was Thomas Sheafe, a brother of Edmund. First, Thomas Sheafe's 1639 will refers to his "daughter Dorothy Whitfield." Second, Threlfall shows the 1617 marriage contract between, on the one hand, Henry Whitfield and his father, and on the other, Dorothy Sheafe and her father, which further demonstrates that Dorothy's father was Thomas Sheafe:
Indenture tripartite made 20 September, 15 James I (1617) between Thomas Whitfeld of Mortlake, county Surrey, esquire, and Henry Whitfeld of Okelye in the same county, clerk, on the first part; Thomas Sheafe of Wickham, county Barks., Doctor of Divinity and Dorothy Sheafe, spinster, his daughter, on the second part; Thomas Woodwarde of Lyncolns Inne, county Middlesex, esquire, Richard Kinge of Lyncolns Inne, esquire, Thomas Rashleigh of the Strande, London, gentleman, and David Rawsoune of St. Gregoryes, London, woollen draper, on the third part, being the settlement previous to the marriage of the said Henry Whitfeld and Dorothy Sheafe; in consideration of £400, her marriage portion, the said Thomas Whitfeld and Henry Whitfeld covenant to levy a fine and suffer recovery of their messuage and 100 ac. of fresh marsh in Bexhill, called Wrenhams, and also of their closes of pasture and fresh marsh, called Jesus marshe in Aylsham alias Haylsham, the said recovery to enure, as to the said messuage and 70 ac. of fresh marsh land in Bexhill to the use of the said Henry Whitfeld and Dorothy Sheafe, and the heirs of the said Henry Whitfeld, and as to the other 30 ac. of fresh marsh called Wrenhams and the lands called Jesus marshe to the use of the said Henry Whitfeld, his heirs and assigns. Seal & Signatures of Thomas Whytfeld and Henry Whitfeld.
[Sussex Archaeological Society, Vol. 37, p. 46.]
Abandoning America and John Brooks Threlfall also disagree on a major point of Dorothy Sheafe's life: whether she accompanied her husband, Henry Whitfield, back to England when he returned there permanently in 1650. Threlfall says that she did not, that she "continued to live in the stone house on its commanding knoll long after her husband's departure," but that in 1659, Dorothy "returned to England and lived there until her death in 1669." Moore says that after Henry's death, Dorothy "visited New England in 1659, perhaps to settle her husband's estate at Guilford", which would seem to imply that she either accompanied him or followed him back to England early in the 1650s. Where Moore and Threlfall appear to agree is that Dorothy was granted probate in Henry's estate on 29 Jan 1658. We aren't expert enough to know whether this is something that would plausibly happen in the early 17th century if the testator's preferred executor was an ocean away.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
- 1669
[7, 8]